Bike Mayors Celebrate Nice Ride's Expansion

The day may have started out overcast, but by mid-afternoon, the skies were blue and a hot sun was beating down on the 50 or so bicyclists gathered in the Seward Co-op's parking lot. 

The crowd was joined by Minneapolis Mayor RT Rybak and St. Paul Mayor Chris Coleman to celebrate the opening of the first Nice Ride Minnesota bicycle stations in St. Paul. The bikers planned to travel from the Seward Co-op to the Dunn Brothers on University Avenue.

"It's a good opportunity for both cities to get together and celebrate Nice Ride and what we can do with alternative transportation," said Ellen Apel of Nice Ride.

Nice Ride Minnesota lends out bikes at stations across the city for a fee. The non-profit debuted last year with shiny green bikes. Even before the planned expansion of all 40 new planned bike-sharing sites (see PDF), Nice Ride had 73 locations across Minneapolis.

Apel said Nice Ride is making plans for more future expansions. "We really want to get into Southwest [Minneapolis] and downtown St. Paul," she said. "There's just a lot of areas that we know we want to hit and that depends on funding."

Blue Cross and Blue Shield has backed Nice Ride Minnesota since the beginning, said Marc Manley, chief prevention officer for Blue Cross. "

"We really look at Nice Ride as a way to transform the cities," he said. "It's a way for people to get around by a form of transportaton that is active so people get exercise while they go to the places they want to go."